CTA New Year's Eve penny rides will be free

Transit agency announces sponsorship deal with MillerCoors

December 05, 2012|By Jon Hilkevitch, Chicago Tribune reporter

Passengers on a CTA Green Line train last month. (John J. Kim)

The CTA, which is hiking the price of fare passes by as much as 74 percent next year, offered a New Year's Eve beer toast to riders Tuesday by announcing free rides for six hours starting late Dec. 31.

MillerCoors was introduced as the first corporate sponsor of the annual CTA penny rides program, which is in effect from 10 p.m. New Year's Eve through 4 a.m. Jan. 1, to provide a safe holiday transportation alternative.

Although the CTA is required by statute to collect fares from passengers, bus drivers and rail station attendants frequently wave revelers aboard on New Year's Eve without paying the 1-cent fare.

Now that policy will be semiofficial under the $1.3 million sponsorship that MillerCoors is paying to the CTA under the three-year deal, CTA President Forrest Claypool said Tuesday at the Clark/Lake station in the Loop, where a display of the Chicago skyline composed of 8,000 pennies was unveiled.

In return for the sponsorship fee, MillerCoors, the maker of Miller Lite, will mount a marketing campaign called Great Beer, Great Responsibility on the CTA system, and 150,000 farecards with the marketing theme will be sold over the next month, MillerCoors CEO Tom Long said.

Claypool said every penny counts at the CTA — which in 2013 will raise the price of one-day, three-day, seven-day and 30-day passes, as well as more than double the fare from O'Hare International Airport toward the city to $5 from the current $2.25 — to help balance the agency's operating budget.

But collecting the penny fare on New Year's Eve has been more trouble than it is worth, saying that customers sometimes try to stick a penny into the wrong slot on bus fareboxes, jamming the machines, he said.

An average of 150,000 bus and train rides are taken on New Year's Eve, CTA officials said.

The CTA recently dropped a 15-year ban on alcoholic beverage advertisements on the transit system. Alcohol ads are now allowed on CTA trains and at some rail stations, but not on buses. The new ads are projected to bring in more than $1 million a year under the current contract and millions more under future advertising contracts, officials said.

The MillerCoors agreement is one of the CTA's first sponsorships. Earlier this year, the transit agency solicited bids for corporate naming-rights sponsorships to assets including Bus Tracker and Train Tracker, the Holiday Train, New Year's Eve penny rides and First Day Free Rides for Chicago Public Schools students. The Chicago Sun-Times signed up to pay $150,000 to help cover the cost of the free rides to schools Sept. 4.

The transit agency has also offered to sell naming rights and sponsorships to 11 rail stations, mostly on the North Side and downtown as well as at both Chicago airports. The stations are Addison, Belmont, Fullerton, North/Clybourn, Chicago, Grand/State, 79th and 95th on the Red Line; Ashland/63rd on the Green Line; O'Hare on the Blue Line; and Midway on the Orange Line, officials said.

The offer of exclusive naming rights at "L" and subway stations was supposed to help generate more revenue from nontraditional sources and help stave off fare hikes, officials had said.

The CTA's search for corporate naming-rights sponsorships is being conducted through IMG, a business development consultant.

In 2010, the CTA signed a $3.9 million deal with Apple Inc. to refurbish the North/Clybourn Red Line stop, partly in exchange for a possible future naming-rights contract for the station, which is near an Apple store. No naming-rights deal has been reached